Sometimes
by Auroura
Summary: Everyone is safe and everyone is home, and yet there are things still unsaid. Post-KH2. Riku-centric. Sora/Riku, OT5ish w/mentions of past Akuroku. Revised version has been posted.
1. Sometimes

Title: Sometimes  
Characters/Pairings: Riku-centric. Sora/Riku, OT5ish (w/mentions of past Akuroku).  
Summary: Post-KH2. Everyone is safe and everyone is home, and yet there are things still unsaid.  
A/N: Part of the Awakenings verse. Required reading this time around is probably Said the Spider to the Fly, Whisper, Riku, Home, Flowers and Chocolate, and Dream.

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**Sometimes**

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Riku wants to say it. Most of the time, he tries to avoid thinking about it, wants it to gather cobwebs and stay in the past where it belongs, but there are times he wants so _badly_ to tell Sora about it. He doesn't want Sora to understand it (the very thought of Sora _understanding_ is something so horrifyingly disturbing that it makes him want to be sick), but sometimes he feels selfish and wants Sora to _know_ about it. Riku figures that thinking of it as selfish is probably some sort of defense mechanism, but he'd choose repression and denial over making Sora feel bad about things any day.

Naminé knows about it; she knew the second he stepped foot in Castle Oblivion, but Riku's never been upset over the way she found out. He just made her promise that she wouldn't tell anyone else about it. Not even _Kairi_ knows. Riku knows that Naminé wants to tell, too, but Naminé keeps her promises, and he knows that she'll never say a word (because _she's_ got secrets she keeps from the others, too – ones she suggests are similar but Riku knows are _different_, they _have_ to be, no matter _how_ much thinking about it hurts even now).

Some days, the _last_ thing Riku thinks about is telling Sora. He'll stand in front of the bathroom mirror in his boxers, safe in his home in Destiny Islands, and think, _I'm lucky to be here, and I'm lucky to just __**be**__; this is good enough_. And he won't feel self-conscious or think about anything besides his friends and how soothing peace can be. Some days, he won't have a single coherent thought in his head other than _Sora's eyes are very blue when he looks at me like that_.

Sometimes, when it's very late at night and Sora is very close and Sora is running his hands down Riku's sides, it takes every single bit of focus Riku has not to sob.

If it's a nice day out (and almost every day is nice in Destiny Islands) and Riku's finished the daily allotment of homework, both regular and remedial, he'll let Sora and Kairi drag him out to the play island again. Sometimes they'll swim, sometimes he and Sora will have a friendly spar (it took some effort for Sora to convince him to do _that_ again, but it was something Riku had secretly missed), and sometimes they'll all stare out at the ocean and just talk. If no one else is around, they might even go up to the old tree house and exercise some teenage hormones away from prying eyes and parents.

If Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie are there, Wakka likes to rope everybody into an impromptu blitzball match in the ocean. The first time after they got back, Selphie wouldn't stop asking about his and Sora's battle scars (like the one Riku has on his side that Sora likes to touch and Roxas likes to be sad about, and the one Sora has on his chest that Riku likes to avoid because it does nothing but remind him of the exact moment he watched Sora get it, yelling as loudly as he could with no one listening but the one he wanted to hear him the least), and Riku had to bite his tongue and let Sora give the explanation they'd been told to give. Riku's not sure how much Sora thinks about things like scars and basically lying to their friends for the sake of the worlds, but he's not sure if anything positive would come of asking. Sometimes, he wonders if Sora thinks about asking _him_ questions like that, and sometimes he wants him to.

He wants to _say_ so many things to Sora. He wants to scream, _Why don't you know? How can you know me so well and be so oblivious to what seems so blindingly clear? How long do I have to go through this before you realize?_ He wants to kill already-dead person-shaped monsters, and he doesn't care if it's with Way to the Dawn or if it's with his bare hands. He wants to go to bed at night knowing with absolute certainty that he won't wake up yelling himself hoarse again. He wants his mother to never look at him with that face at three in the morning (like she doesn't _know_ him anymore) ever again. He wants to not worry that Sora's mom found out he snuck over and woke up in Sora's bed _again_, and to tell her that it's not _always_ because he had another nightmare.

Sometimes, when he finds himself suddenly wide awake and shaking violently, trying not to throw up and _praying_ to a mostly-undefined higher power that he's not _crying_ (and if he is, that Sora can't see it), he wonders if it's finally gotten so bad that it's written all over his face and spelled out for Sora to see. If _this_ is the time he'll finally get to see Sora's eyes widen in shock, in horror, and if he'll then see Sora get very, very angry, like he's only seen him do a few times in sixteen whole years. If Sora will tell Roxas, and instead of Roxas harshly telling Riku that he doesn't want to be pitied (because Riku tries very hard, but Riku is still not Axel), that this time it will be Roxas who pities Riku. If Kairi will also find out, and if any of them will ever be able to look at him the same again.

It's in those moments that he most wants to keep it a secret, to never cause Sora to even consider _thinking_ about anything close to that, much less find _out_ about it. Riku doesn't want to do something to cause Sora to be angry anymore, doesn't want to feel weak, and doesn't want to wonder how long it'll take before it all just _goes away_ and lets him get _on_ with his life. But still.

He still wants to _say_ it, and he doesn't know _why_.


	2. Last Night

Title: Sometimes – Last Night  
Characters/Pairings: Riku-centric. Sora/Riku, OT5ish (w/mentions of past Akuroku).  
Summary: Post-KH2. Everyone is safe and everyone is home, and yet there are things still unsaid.  
A/N: Part of the Awakenings verse. Required reading this time around is probably Said the Spider to the Fly, Whisper, Riku, Home, and Dream.

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**Last Night**

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_Today is a day for thinking_, Riku's decided, as he sits on the Paopu tree and watches the waves. He had breakfast and tea this morning in a different house than the house he ate dinner in last night. Riku thinks his mother's probably given up for a while on asking him the awkward questions outright, and has instead started buying every different flavor of tea she comes across, like one of them will magically get him to talk. _Sora's_ mom still buys only two kinds of tea, regular and chamomile, and she's the only one that ever drinks the chamomile. There must not be much going on right now, if all he's thinking about is tea.

But that's not _really_ true, is it? Last night, there were different sorts of thoughts running through his mind. Last night, he woke up at least three different times. It all blurs together a bit, after a while, but last night was probably one of the harder nights. He's had a good number of _bad_ nights since they've gotten back, of course, but last night was one of the _hard_ ones. He knows it's a hard one when his mouth feels like a ticking time bomb, and he doesn't know how long he has left before everything just explodes. Sometimes, he thinks he might want it to explode, but last night, it was the last thing he wanted.

Riku's not exactly sure what set it off, but last night, he thinks he practically _ran_ over to Sora's; it's a slightly embarrassing thought, but it's not like running away from his problems is anything particularly new. When he got there, though, he could barely do anything besides rasp out Sora's name once, and even though he couldn't stop himself from constantly touching Sora, Riku still felt hazy and stiff and too far away from it all. He remembers Sora pulling at him to get under the covers and lie down, frowning and concerned, holding him close when Riku buried his face in the crook of Sora's neck because he wasn't sure he could stand Sora seeing his expression. Still, it was only that constant tactile presence that allowed Riku to cautiously drift back off to sleep again.

Riku figures he probably woke up again less than an hour after that. His dream was about… the usual, though it's something that he has never, _ever_ been able to get used to, no matter how many times it replays itself in his sleep. But he remembers waking up suddenly, gasping for breath and holding onto Sora as tightly as he could, only realizing after a minute or so that he was still shaking. At first, he had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but that only flashed the same images he'd just seen, so instead, he just stared at Sora's bedsheets. Sora'd been murmuring something to him softly, rubbing his back in slow motions, but the words didn't make sense just then, so Riku focused on the sound of his voice until the shaking stopped and he could breathe normally.

_Sora looked more serious last night_, Riku thinks, _than he should have to, now that we're back home. I suppose that's my fault_. He didn't want to be a burden, but… he just didn't know what else to do. Sora being there really made him feel better about things; it made everything that'd happened not seem quite so heavy. Or if it was still just as heavy, the heaviness didn't seem to matter as much, and he let Sora coax him back to sleep again with something that tried to be a smile.

Of course, once he was back to sleep, the nightmare picked back up again, right where it left off, the threads of it acting as if he hadn't woken up at all in the first place. The colors, the sounds, the way things twisted together until he forgot how to breathe, like he… _Stop it, just stop thinking about it_. At this rate, Riku'll just end up going over it all _again_. He lets himself remember, though, how when he woke up again, spine stiff and breathing ragged once more, eyes focused on Sora's face and not daring to look away, Sora didn't even have to ask him about it out loud, just gazed back at him in a silent question.

Again, the only thing Riku was really capable of saying just then was Sora's name, but this time, it was unsure, almost silent, and threaded with something Riku could barely recognize. This time, Riku went back to not being able to keep his hands off of Sora, almost like he'd be able to reassure himself that Sora was still there and wouldn't just vanish inexplicably into thin air. He remembers just touching a hand to Sora's cheek, nothing more than the lightest of caresses to the brunet's face, but his hand was trembling and his head felt like it was underwater. They were just inches apart and Sora still had an arm wrapped around Riku's back, but it still felt somehow like there was some sort of incredible divide between them, made up of words Riku couldn't bring himself to utter and wouldn't let himself think about.

Sora, though, either didn't see that divide or didn't care about it, and just pulled Riku closer, kissing him. If Riku'd felt underwater before, this was like finally coming up for air. As long as it just stayed like this for a little, as long as they didn't lose that contact, then the rest of everything didn't matter and couldn't ruin any of it. And Riku kept pressing closer, kept Sora from vanishing, and Sora kept Riku in the here and now. It was all so very quiet, everything about that night, but Riku thinks Sora knew – still knows now – that the communication wasn't really about words. Even if Sora didn't understand all the overlapping layers of meaning behind the hitches in Riku's breath as he slowly moved his hands down Riku's bare sides, when everything was close and now and warm, he understood enough to stay as close as he could for as long as he could, which was the important part.

Then, Sora was just Sora and he was just Riku, so really, it was the same as it'd always been.

Riku hears the sound of the door to the seaside shack opening, pulling him out of his thoughts temporarily, the steps toward him belonging to Sora, from the sounds of them. He takes a breath. Those other things can wait until tomorrow to bother him, Riku decides; he's got better things going on today.


End file.
